A recent ETF filing has put Tao's native cryptocurrency, TAO, in the spotlight as it prepares for potential institutional investment. However, its economic performance is vastly different from NEAR, with lower on-chain revenue and a higher subsidy-to-revenue ratio.
The Bittensor network, which TAO powers, focuses primarily on AI incentive economics rather than decentralized finance (DeFi). As a result, TAO's daily revenue of $15,600 is significantly lower than NEAR's $118,000 in DeFi revenue. The total value locked (TVL) in the NEAR network has also tripled over the past three months to reach $183 million.
The differences in economic performance between TAO and NEAR can be seen in various metrics. For example, NEAR's protocol ratio is close to 1, indicating that network income almost fully covers its subsidies and incentives. In contrast, TAO distributes over $148 million worth of new tokens each year but generates only $3 to $15 million in external revenue.